When Sherlock Was: Age 3
by Flame.of.Ishval
Summary: When Sherlock was three years old, he thought that his brother Mycroft, who was ten, was the most fascinating and intelligent person in the world. To be fair, he didn't really have a lot of people to compare him to. First in a series of little vignettes about Sherlock growing up.


**When Sherlock Was: Age 3**

When Sherlock was three years old, he was a chubby toddler with a mop of unruly black curls that couldn't be tamed into any sort of style, no matter how hard his nanny tried each morning. He had already mastered a great deal of vocabulary, but, thankfully for everyone involved, chose to quietly observe things and draw his own conclusions instead of bombarding the adults around him with the question "why" like other children his age. Instead, he chose to bombard the adults around him with stories and observations, noticing rarely that nobody was listening. Sherlock's nanny meanwhile had mastered the art of nodding and yes-ing in all the right places to keep young Sherlock entertained as he prattled on, while she flipped through the pages of whatever book she was reading.

Sherlock thought that his brother, Mycroft, was the most fascinating and intelligent person on the planet, or at least the most fascinating and intelligent of all the people he knew. Mycroft readily agreed. (He thought the same about himself.) In little Sherlock's defense, he had little to compare Mycroft to. The two boys were being raised in the Holmes family's old manor house, which was a half hour's drive from the nearest town and surrounded by manicured gardens and well-tended fields and woods. The people the boys knew were the staff their parents employed: maids and nannies, cooks and drivers, groundskeepers and caretakers. Hardly the sort of people the boys would have compared themselves to or attempted to befriend. But, of course, Sherlock's fascination with his brother also had its roots in the fact that Mycroft was seven years older, which was as good as being a grown-up to little Sherlock. Mycroft also was in year five at a school where students wore uniforms that consisted of neat gray slacks, white shirts, and dark blue jumpers with an embroidered crest. Little Sherlock didn't know what the big to-do about school uniforms was, but he knew that having a school uniform was reserved for brilliant older brothers, which made him a little jealous but also very proud of Mycroft.

Each day, Sherlock would eagerly sit on the big cushions in the windowsill of his nursery, from which he could see the driveway, and wait for the car that brought Mycroft home from school to pull up. Sherlock would hold his breath and listen intently to hear his brother's footsteps running up the stairs and down the hallway to his own room, then he'd take one of his toys and run to Mycroft's room to invite his brother to play. He knew, of course, that he couldn't just barge in and ask his brother to play; he needed to wait until Mycroft had finished his homework. So Sherlock would sit in the doorway and play with his toys until his brother was done.

Mycroft was a diligent student who spent a great deal of time completing his homework and reading ahead for the next class. Although it took little effort for him to bring home straight A's and be at the top of all his classes, he always took on extra work, even without the promise of extra credit, and took great pleasure in learning. He also insisted on having everything just right: his notes had to be impeccable, his notebooks without dog ears and wrinkles. He did his homework at a large mahogany desk that had belonged to the boys' grandfather and that their father had given to Mycroft as a gift when he'd started school, with a mention that he would "grow into it." Young Mycroft had misunderstood this to mean he needed to become important enough to rate such a fine desk, and applied himself to make that happe

When Mycroft finished his homework, he would close his notebook, which was little Sherlock's clue he was now allowed in the room to invite his brother to play. He'd walk up to the desk and push his toy over the edge – he could barely reach that high – and he'd say loudly, "MY-COFF! Play!" He couldn't quite pronounce his brother's name, but knew that any attempt he made at pronouncing the whole thing was better than calling him Mike (Mycroft hated that). Then Mycroft would take the toy and the two brothers would spend some time playing together before dinner.

For all his growing observation skills, little Sherlock didn't yet realize that his brother didn't share his enthusiasm about their time spent together. Mycroft, after all, was seven years older, and he viewed his baby brother as little more than a nuisance and an obligation. On a good day, when school had been pleasant and homework was done, Sherlock was a nuisance to be tolerated. On a bad day, when Mycroft had been teased by other kids at school for being a "brain" (he still didn't understand why this was a bad thing), Sherlock was an annoyance to be ignored. Occasionally, when he didn't want to deal with him at all, Mycroft would push his little brother into the hallway and shut the door, knowing Sherlock could not yet reach the high door handle. Mycroft hated how dull his brother could be, that he didn't take the clues he was not welcome, and that his dirty toys did not belong onto the desk where they wrinkled notebook corners and smeared fresh ink.

One afternoon in spring, Mycroft had almost finished his math homework and was stretching in his chair, which Sherlock took as his cue to come into the room for play time. Sherlock was carrying his favorite toy, a plush dog, and eagerly toddled his way over to Mycroft's desk where he stood on his tippy toes, extended his arms all the way, and pushed the dog onto the top surface, letting out a great, satisfied, "MY-COFF! PLAY!" as he did it.

Sherlock hadn't meant to hit the glass of orange juice that stood, half-full, at the corner of the desk beside Mycroft's notebook, but by the time he heard the clinking of the glass, it was too late. The orange juice had run across the notebook, then down the desk, and started dripping over the edge onto Mycroft's school trousers and the rug. Sherlock was stunned, tears welling up in his eyes. Mycroft was furious. He tore the doll away from his baby brother, chucked it out of the open window, and slapped his baby brother across the face in anger. Sherlock found himself sitting on the rug, half stunned, blood spurting out of both nostrils, and tears streaming from his big blue eyes. He let out a piercing shriek because there was red liquid coming from his face (and he didn't understand what it was) and ran from the room, wailing at the top of his lungs as he went, while the nanny came running from his nursery in a panic.

Mycroft shut and locked his door, got a fresh notebook, and neatly re-did all of the math homework his baby brother had ruined. Of course, he knew that he had a stern lecture coming from their father, but he was confident he could explain what had happened and that father would agree his reaction had been reasonable once he saw the ruined notebook. (He turned out to be incredibly wrong on that assumption.) From that day on, however, Mycroft simply shut his bedroom door when he got home so that Sherlock couldn't bother him. When Sherlock grew tall enough to open the door, Mycroft locked it. Eventually, his baby brother left him in peace.

For little Sherlock, this had been the first time in his life he didn't understand.


End file.
